Befuddled
by amberpire
Summary: He's skewed and off center and crooked, but so are hearts. ;Kid/MaleCrona;


Everything about him is crooked. Skewed. Off. _Asymmetrical_.

Kid knows that. Everyone does. They don't have to have crippling obsessive compulsive disorder to see that. Crona is as twisted as they come. It's not so much his appearance as it is what's going on underneath it - his brain is irregular, off course, not centered, hopelessly and irrevocably damaged. Time could soothe him, maybe, but nothing would be able to repair the sheer volume of brokenness within the boy. Even Kid, who had spent hours making everything around him perfectly symmetrical.

There were just some things Kid would never be able to fix. But he wonders just what kind of beauty lies in the broken.

Crona's hand is small under his. Fragile. Kid's golden eyes slip up the boy's black sleeve, lingering on his profile. His head is slightly ducked, cerulean gaze darting nervously between his lap and the Reaper's at his side. Kid smiles softly, his fingers slipping in the spaces between Crona's. It makes the boy jump, his ankles crossing and twisting where they dangle off of the wall. Death City is warm and yellow beneath them, spread out, the houses and streets and people like a child's toy town under their feet.

The drooling sun is beginning to dip. A brilliant shade of pink swarms across the horizon and Kid takes a moment to see the symmetrical waves of orange and yellow, perfectly sectioned, and the way the clouds are blending into the atmosphere. He admired that natural order, the way things fit - balanced. Kid's eyes shift back to the boy at his side, their fingers entwined. Crona has no balance. No symmetry. Even his coral hair, broken and split - not one strand the same length as the other - he wonders if Crona's thoughts are as gibbous as his outside.

"You seem more nervous than usual." Kid pulls Crona's hand into his lap. The boy is usually at some degree of unease, but he's been particularly withdrawn all day. Of course, Kid was the only one to pick up on the subtlety; most of their friends were so horribly unobservant. They had barely noticed when Kid and Crona had started dating. It's not like it had been that big of a deal; one day Kid asked Crona to coffee and the boy spent the majority of the evening spilling his drink and shaking so uncontrollably Kid almost felt sorry for asking. The boy was a ball of nerves one hundred percent of the time, permanently on the edge and prepared to panic at a moment's notice. However, by the end of the night, Kid was kissing Crona at his door and the boy had melted for once. Kid had watched the tension flood out of him.

There had been gossip. Staring. A blank stare from his father. And, of course, a lot of fuss form Ragnarok. (Fortunately for everyone involved, he didn't come out of Crona's back very often, if Kid was around.) But it had been months now and they were finally reaching a point where Crona's hand whispered permission to grasp Kid's in the hallway and Kid, with a soft smile, obliged. He had always been naturally drawn to boys - symmetry, and all - but Crona ... Crona was different. He was different because there was nothing symmetrical about him. From his black gown to his half smile, nothing in him was straight or even.

Kid's eyes focus on the frown settling over Crona's lips. His free hand picks at the cloth of his clothes. "I had ... that dream again."

Kid's good mood simmers. His jaw clenches as he lifts the hand twisted in Crona's, pressing his lips to the back of it. Crona's skin is soft and he breathes in his scent - faint tinge of soap, as well as some kind of citrus fruit Crona must have been eating earlier. That dream ... Crona had woken up in the midst of a good night's rest more than once, screaming and flailing, reaching wildly for Kid on the other side of the bed. It had damn near given Kid a heart attack the first time, thinking they were being attacked, only to find Crona crushed to his chest in a fit of tears.

Kid's eyes peel open, eyes flicking over the city beneath them before traveling to Crona. The boy is just about chewing his lip raw, hand shaking as Kid lowers it to his lap again.

This boy, asymmetry in one body, a walking vessel for the all things awry ... Liz had asked him once. She had her head propped up on her fist and her eyebrows were twisted over her nose. Kid's eyes had been on Crona's back as he spoke nervously to Professor Stein, his hands curling in front of him, and she had blubbered, "But why him?"

She hadn't meant it rudely, he knew that. She liked Crona, most everyone did, she was just vocalizing what everyone else was thinking. Crona didn't fit what everyone thought Kid's standard would be. Several heads had turned, Maka and Soul on the edges of their seats, Black Star shutting his arrogant mouth to twist in Kid's direction. He had set his jaw, closed his eyes, and smiled. "I don't know," had been his answer, and it still was.

He didn't know. He wasn't sure he ever would. It befuddled him as much as it did everyone else.

Kid couldn't explain what drew him in at first, because it was the very thing that repelled him from everything else. Crona was broken and off. There was nothing symmetrical about the boy, and yet ... he could feel his heart bumping away whenever they were together, found himself distracted watching him move the way kicked dogs did. He had to admit that he was simply mesmerized by this strange meister, this accident of a person. But there was never an awkward moment - their silences were comfortable, their conversations had meaning, and when they made love, it was soft and gentle, and something about the way their bodies lined up not perfectly was ... perfect.

"Why didn't you come to my room?" Kid eyes the boy who still hasn't met his gaze yet, his eyes jerking everywhere but. Kid's free hand extends, curling his pointer finger under the meister's chin and tugging his face up. Reluctantly, Crona's light aqua eyes snap into two tiny suns.

Crona's frail shoulders shift and roll in a shrug. "I ... It was late, and, and Ragnarok told me not to ..."

Kid huffs, watching as Crona's eyes fall again. He drops his hand, letting it fall on the tent of Crona's knee. "I don't give a damn about what Ragnarok says, or if it's five in the morning, Crona. You can come to me whenever you want."

Crona's lips struggle with a smile only for it to flee. He shifts on the wall. "You ... you died this time, Kid."

The Reaper freezes. Crona squeezes his hand, his head whipping upward.

"I usually wake up just before I can reach you, but she ... Med-dusa, she ... she got you, and you ..." His voice is strained and tight, his head turning away to press into his opposite shoulder. "You died, and I couldn't save you ..."

Kid shifts himself closer, their thighs touching. He finds the boy's chin again and forces him to face him, watching as tears swell in Crona's eyes. It isn't unusual for him to cry - something as simple as Kid picking up his dropped books for him in the hallway can just about make the young meister tear up - but it tugs at Kid's heart every time, regardless. "It wasn't real," Kid mumbles softly, his thumb brushing away a stray tear, only for the trail to fill with a new one.

Crona nods, his eyes squeezing shut. "I know, and Medusa's ... dead ... but I, I ... it's so _real_."

Kid watches the boy's shoulders start to shake, the disproportionate strands of his soft pink hair fluttering over his face. "Crona -"

"I know it's stupid, I just can't help it because I can't - I can't deal with losing you, Kid, I-I-I, I just, I couldn't handle it, I - remember when you first asked me to coffee? I thought I was going to throw up or, or die or something, and I don't - now I just - I don't know why you would pick me and I'm not, I'm not, you can do so much better and -"

Kid shuts him up pretty effectively with his mouth. It's instant, the way Crona falls against his chest, hands clinging to Kid's shoulders. Kid hates when Crona gets like that. It's the boy he was before he came to the Academy, the little child still lost in the desert. Maka had saved him from that place and Kid kept his head above the surface. He silences the rest of Crona's self-hate, one hand tangled in Crona's hair, the other tightening on his knee. When he pulls back, Crona's face is almost the same shade of pink as his hair.

"Stop talking like that." The demand is spoken softly, against Crona's trembling lips. "You don't have to deal with losing me because I'm not going anywhere, and I like you just as you are. If I wanted someone else, I would be with someone else." He tilts his head away, Crona's eyes meeting his with surprising bravery. Kid smiles, his arm looping around Crona's thin waist and pulling him close, lips on his temple. "And the dream will go away if you stop believing that it's a possibility of the future, which we both know is not."

There's the faint sound of Crona's soft breathing for a time and the wind playing with their hair. Kid brushes black wisps from his eyes and leans back, finding Crona's eyes with his own. The sun has nearly disappeared, a thick purple clinging to the sky, and with Crona against it, it's ... almost perfect. It's not symmetrical, it's not even, it's not balanced, but ... it's beautiful in its own right. That's what Crona has shown him, above all else - that there is beauty in asymmetry.

"Kid?"

"Yeah?"

Crona's cheeks darken. "I l- I, I lo-"

"You can do it." Kid gives a reassuring smile, his hand smoothing along the shaking boy's cheek.

Crona's eyes meet his. They don't jerk away. He doesn't twitch. "I love you."

And nothing about him is right. He's skewed and off center and crooked, but so are hearts. They're not even and straight and balanced. They wind and twirl and curve and sometimes, they break into pieces so tiny and fragile, they can't be fixed properly. But Kid doesn't want to fix him; for once in his life, he just wants to dip his feet into uncharted water.

"I love you, too."

Kid kisses him until a chuckling moon hangs in the sky.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _Two Soul Eater fics in one day? I need a hobby or something, seriously._

_...Wait. This_ is_ my hobby._

_But I mean really, isn't Crona the cutest thing? And Kid. I just ~die~ you guys._

_Reviews would be lovely!_


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